The Water Thief Read online

  When I emerged, Sven stood in front of me, the blanket he’d taken from me held out of reach. “Don’t know if you’re mad or in trouble or both.” He stepped closer. “But you do something for me, and I’ll do something for you. Give you a floor to sleep on and teach you how to get by.”

  “What something?” I asked the question, certain I knew the answer.

  Sven raised the blanket above our heads and made a tent against the door of the outhouse, leaning over me. “Don’t want to force you. It ain’t fun that way. But I can make it good for you.” He gave me a lopsided, apologetic smile. “Maybe not the first time. But I’ll go easy on you as I can.” He’d pressed his groin against my thigh as he spoke, making his meaning plain. It was certainly the most considerate—and attractive—offer I’d ever had.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  The blond eyebrows went up charmingly. “Turn around and hold the blanket.”

  “Here? Right now?”

  “Maybe you noticed there’s not a lot of privacy in the house. I can do you in there, makes no difference to me, but folk will talk.” He took one of my hands and raised it to the hem of the blanket. “Turn around. I’ll be quick.”

  I let him turn me and put my other hand on the blanket’s edge against the door. The sound of his preparations—slipping his braces over his shoulders, unbuttoning, giving himself a vigorous stroking—made my own cock rise. He spat noisily into his hand while he raised my gown. Not the ideal lubricant, but better than—

  “Oh, fuck.” The words burst out of me on a long groan as the slippery head pushed me open insistently. Sven was as big as his height and broad shoulders suggested.

  “Am I hurting you?” His words were considerate, but his cock seemed to have a mind of its own, not waiting for an answer as it burrowed deep.

  “Just enough,” I groaned, pressing my cheek to the door despite the smell.

  Sven’s arm slipped around my waist, tugging me up higher on my toes while he widened his stance and bent his knees to make our heights more even. My cock brushed his arm, and Sven’s other hand came around to hold it. “Sweet Sly,” he murmured. “Thought you were just putting up with me. I’ll make it good for you, soon as I finish.”

  I made an incoherent sound in reply as he began to fuck me, giving it to me hard and fast as if to make as quick work of it as possible. I whimpered under his pounding. The spit wasn’t really up to the job, but I’d had worse, and the thrill of being taken like a dog in the rain kept me hard and wanting it. Sven went at it athletically, grunting with exertion at my ear, and brought himself to a swift, and, from the sound of it, very satisfying conclusion.

  Still panting, he pushed my right leg up, bent at the knee, and managed to turn me around without pulling all the way out, so that I faced him, eager cock and all, with him resting inside me. The blanket slipped out of my hands, and he put it back. “Wrap your legs around my bum,” he said, and I complied, held up only by his weight against me and the door behind me. Sven admired my cock, stroking slowly. “Didn’t hurt you?”

  “Not too much.” Just a few strokes and I was already close to coming.

  “Never had anyone like you before,” he remarked as he picked up speed.

  I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, ready to burst. “Like me?”

  “Highborn,” he said, just as I convulsed in his hand and gave him my highborn seed. I opened my eyes, moaning, still coming in stuttering pulses. He rubbed his thumb in it, making me shudder. “You worth anything? If I turned you in?”

  My body was confused by the sudden rush of cold up my spine mixing with the still very pleasant heat in my groin. “Probably a slit throat,” I managed. “For both of us.”

  Sven nodded and let the dirty gown fall back over my sticky, softening prick. He drew me to his chest to lift me off and set me on my feet.

  “Wouldn’t want that,” he said as he buttoned up. “We’ll stick with the original arrangement.” Wrapping the blanket around my shoulders once more, he led me back to the house. “Let’s get you some warm clothes and some breakfast, Sly.”

  The house had come to life while we were out, and the wood stove was burning, some kind of porridge boiling on the stovetop. The figures I’d seen sleeping turned out to be a pair of rough-looking women, one of whom had shorn hair, and three equally gritty men around Sven’s age.

  “This is Sly,” said Sven, prompting a few unintelligible grunts in greeting. “Don’t mind them,” he murmured as he led me through another door I hadn’t noticed, opening onto a sort of storage room the size of my cell at All Fates. “Just have to prove yourself to them.” He closed the door and dug about in a box of clothes to find something to fit me.

  “Not the way I had to prove myself to you, I hope.”

  Sven laughed, and then glanced up, his brow knitting with concern. “You said I wouldn’t be the first. But where you’ve been—I suppose it wasn’t all by your leave.”

  “Some.”

  “Then I’m heartily sorry, Sly. It ain’t right to treat a boy so.” He rose and came toward me with an armload of clothes, standing so close I was afraid he meant to kiss me. I felt myself blush to my roots, unaccustomed to anything so intimate despite having carnal relations, but Sven merely handed me the garments. “Some of these ought to fit you. I’ll see if Jewel can spare some water for the tub. Normally, bath day’s Saturday, and the one pulling the least weight gets the water last—which’d be you. No fault o’ your own. But you’re covered in mud, so I think we can make an exception.”

  * * * * *

  Sven returned with a large pot of steaming water and a wide grin a few minutes later. “Jewel’s swearing up a storm. Was just about to use this to boil a basket of eggs Bryn lifted from the farmers’ market by the wharf, but I snatched it from her. I’m afraid this is all the hot water you’re going to get, though.” He filled the metal tub in the corner. “I’ll bring you a bucket or two from the pump. Should be enough to get the mud off you.”

  I expected him to leave me to it once he’d hauled in the cold water and added it to the tub, but Sven drew up the stool as if he intended to stay. Feeling self-conscious after the rather hurried intimacy we’d shared, I turned my back to slip the gown off and step into the tub. Sven tossed me a rag and a nib of soap when I settled into the tepid water and turned about. It was a warmer bath than most I’d had at All Fates.

  “Those marks on your back,” he said, as if it were a question.

  “From the cane.”

  His blond eyebrows drew inward. “What business they have beatin’ you? Can’t imagine you’re much trouble.”

  Before it all turned brown, I scooped up some clear water with the pitcher beside the tub to wash my face, answering after I’d scrubbed. “Corrective discipline.”

  Sven took the pitcher and dipped it again, pouring it over my hair as I tilted back my head. “Shouldn’ta come on so strong with you so quick. Didn’t even think to ask if you was all right, what you mighta been through.” His cheeks were slightly pink in the glow of first light from the window overhead. “I guess you got me riled. Don’t often see one as pretty as you around here.”

  I was quite certain now that my cheeks were pink. I occupied myself with scrubbing at the mud on my arms. “It’s not as if I wasn’t willing,” I muttered.

  Sven grinned. “Oh, I could tell you were willing. Just saying maybe I should’ve kept my dick in my pants long enough to let you get settled, is all. Figure I can wait a bit before I collect on your half of the arrangement again. Show you the ropes around here.”

  I felt my nipples go hard as he spoke of having me again, and Sven clearly noticed.

  “Damn, you might be the death of me, Sly.” He shook his head and jumped up from the stool, still grinning. “Think I better let you finish up on your own. Towel’s on the hook, back of the door. Don’t take too long, or you’ll miss
out on breakfast.”

  When he’d gone, I leaned back against the tub and closed my eyes. I had fooled around some with boys at the asylum. Everyone did—to ease the itch, ease the boredom, even just to have someone’s touch that wasn’t correction. I had also had my share of unwanted submission. I’d never given any thought to what I might do if I ever left All Fates, who I might be. All Fates had become my reality. Sven was the first time I’d been taken that way, by someone who obviously desired me and someone who unequivocally roused my own desire. It was still an exchange, a necessity, but it certainly wasn’t a hardship. What did that make me? Names I’d been called and called others now took on a totally new meaning. My stomach fluttered with conflict—and hunger.

  “Sebastian.” The disapproving tone drove me bolt upright with eyes wide open. August stood before me in the wavering steam, as real as she had the night before. I’d begun to think I’d dreamt her. “This is not why I brought you here.”

  I opened my mouth in speechless mortification at having been found out by her, even if she was a ghost. Sexuality wasn’t something that had ever been discussed between us, though we’d told each other most everything else.

  “I meant for you to take back what’s ours, not learn to be a common thief.”

  I blinked at her, dizzied by the shift from what I’d been thinking and what I thought she’d come to berate me for, to what had apparently earned her disapproval. But if she knew of my agreement with Sven, she most likely knew what I’d just done anyway.

  “You sent me here,” I said defensively. “And how am I to take back anything? I’m a fugitive. Do you know someone has set himself up with my name and title? Even if I weren’t wanted for your murder, I could hardly waltz into Llys Mawr and announce my return to claim my inheritance.”

  “Of course I know it. That’s why you must. He cannot be allowed to get away with killing both of us.”

  “Both of us?” The water had gotten cold, and I shivered.

  “You were as dead as I in that cage. As dead to yourself and to the rest of the world as if you were lying at the bottom of the bog beside me. It’s time for you to live.”

  The door opened through her, and August wavered out like a reflection in water scattered by a disturbing hand.

  “You all right in here? Who you talking to?” Sven frowned, glancing about.

  “Was I talking?” I hugged my knees to my chest. “I’m afraid I fell asleep.”

  The wrinkled brow smoothed, and Sven took the towel from the hook and held it out for me. “Come on, then. Don’t want you to drown in there. There’s a bit of porridge left if you hurry.”

  I climbed out and took the towel, and Sven shook his head as I wrapped it around myself. He came close and tilted up my chin. “Might not be able to wait as long to collect as I ought, after all. You’re a damn beauty, you are, with that mud off. Maybe I should’ve left it on you.” Once more, I thought he’d kiss me, but he only smiled. “Get your clothes on, and I’ll try to fight the boys for that porridge a minute longer.”

  Chapter Three

  Over the next several months, I learned to do for myself things I’d never done. Household chores were shared by all, though the place was small and cleanliness didn’t seem to be a priority. But I learned to cook, in a manner of speaking, from crop-haired Jewel, who rarely spoke except in irritated grumbling, and to mend my clothes from Abigail, who’d once been a ladies’ maid but had lost her position after the groundskeeper put her in the family way. Apparently, there were remedies for such occasions, and Abigail had aborted the pregnancy, though too late to save her position and her good name. She also taught me what she knew about herbs and tinctures.

  From Glyn and Bryn, two orphaned brothers, I learned the fine art of picking pockets, and from Ifan, I learned confidence games—these I never quite became adept at, but it was fascinating to watch when he took to the boardwalk with his folding table and his games of Find the Lady.

  But it was Sven who taught me how to survive. Taught me to be cunning and not to be easily duped. Taught me how to use my size to my advantage in a fight, and to fend off an attacker. And taught me that I was someone of value, separate from the name and title to which I could no longer lay claim.

  He also taught me how I could take my revenge. It began innocently enough. Each of us made frequent forays into the markets and the more respectable parts of the cantref to pick pockets, climb over garden walls and liberate anything unattended, or to do a simple snatch-and-run. My first few attempts at the latter earned me beatings rather than loot, but those we stole from were rarely of a standing that could afford to involve the law if we were caught.

  The idea of such an existence would have been abhorrent to me during the first thirteen years of my life, but hunger is a great motivator for accepting change. We bartered anything of real value among the other tenants of Thievesward, bringing back what we could make use of—and sometimes a few things we couldn’t.

  It was on one such occasion that Abigail returned to the house with a sack of clothing that had belonged to a lady of means—a fancy courtesan, Sven explained, who comported and attired herself to blend in amongst her high-society clientele. The garments were far too petite for either Abigail or Jewel, and Abigail had planned to sell them, but Sven found it amusing to have me try them on.

  Abigail did the honors of lacing me into a corset, a sensation I found both alarming and somewhat arousing. It gave me an instant girlish waist that shocked me when I stood before the cracked mirror in the changing room. Jewel turned out to have a surprising knowledge of aberrant dressing, and she showed me how to give myself the appearance of cleavage using a strip of surgical bandage affixed with a beech tar adhesive—stolen from none other than All Fates Asylum in the aftermath of the East Wing collapse.

  Sven observed me from the doorway while Jewel and Abigail finished with my underthings.

  Abigail swept up my shoulder-length hair, managing, with a few pins, to make it look like a lady’s chignon. “What do you think, Sven? A little rouge on his lips and cheeks, and no one would guess he was a man. With those brown doe eyes of his and the natural curl he has to his hair—ladies call that color cherrywood, and some’d kill to have it—he’d make as pretty a girl as he does a boy.” I hardly needed rouge to bring color to my cheeks under all this scrutiny.

  “I think,” said Sven, “I’d like a few moments alone with Sly.”

  Jewel and Abigail left the room without comment or a raised eyebrow and closed the door. My breathing quickened, the constriction of the corset making me light-headed. Sven had made no further advances or attempts to “collect” from me since that morning in the rain. I’d begun to think he’d lost interest.

  I still stood before the mirror, and Sven came up behind me, slipping his arms around my manufactured waist. He met my eyes in the glass. “I mean to have you now, Sly, if that’s all right by you.”

  Juxtaposed with the creamy satin of the corset, the rigid shape of my desire made itself known through the lacy ruffles of the drawers. “Quite all right.” The breathy gasp seemed to come naturally, my voice emitted higher by default.

  Sven prompted me forward by the shoulders. “Brace your hands on the mirror.”

  I did as he bid me, staring at myself as Sven tugged the drawers from the confines of the corset and freed me, sliding the silk over my thighs to my knees and pushing my legs apart to keep the garment from falling. While Sven turned his back to me, rustling through a dresser drawer, the unabashed expression of my consent jutted prominently from the dusky curls at its base. Sven returned, a small jar in his hand and his generous erection obvious through the rough cotton of his pants. He slipped the braces off and unbuttoned, releasing himself and stroking slowly as he watched me in the mirror.

  He held up the jar. “Mineral oil. The girls use it to soften their skin after they bathe. I thought I’d use it to soften my entry.”
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  I watched him unscrew the lid and massage himself with the sweet-smelling oil until his cock glistened like a dangerous blade. A dangerous blade that would soon be sheathed inside me. I shivered, and he smiled, setting the jar aside as he took himself in hand and lined himself up.

  “Glad to see you’re still enthusiastic about our arrangement.”

  I grinned back at him. “Glad to see we still have a—ohhh…” The last word was a groan as he rubbed the head of his cock against my cleft and the slippery oil eased his way into me. I pushed back, eager to have it all, and impaled myself on him.

  Sven’s eyes widened in the mirror as his arm came around my middle. “Damn, but you’re hungry for it, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t be quick,” I said in reply, measuring my constricted breaths. “This garment—it’s amazing.”

  Sky-blue eyes sparkled with desire. “That’s an understatement, sweet little Sly. Soon as I saw it on you, I knew I had to take you in it. Glad it pleases you too.” With both hands now on my hips, he let me have it, slow and steady, watching his flesh disappear inside me and reemerge with intense concentration.

  I moved my gaze from Sven’s reflection to my own, fascinated by the glassy look in the deep brown of my eyes and the high color in my cheeks as I watched myself being fucked. It seemed the height of decadence to be aroused by one’s own image, and there was an odd mix of exhibitionism and voyeurism in it. I groaned with pleasure as Sven penetrated deep with a firm gyration of his hips against me and pulled back to tug teasingly at my opening until I was whimpering for more.

  I was so absorbed in the hedonism of taking him with such abandon while admiring my own image that I jumped when he moved his hand to my erection.